Local author publishes a thriller

Reading provides endless entertainment. Age doesn’t matter. Even toddlers love hearing stories, often asking for their favorites again and again. Many adults read an entire book, or parts of it, more than once.

Fortunately for all who enjoy traveling through a writer’s journey, authors continue to fill libraries and book stores with quality materials. Plots, dialogues, characters, grammar and research fill the dedicated writers’ days.

Finding the right words to nourish the imagination of readers becomes a full-time job as each writer creates thrillers, biographies of well-known people, poetry, pages filled with romance or developing stories around aliens and interplanetary wars, so popular in the world of science fiction and fantasy. Hopefully, plenty of warm summer days will provide plenty of comfort to relax outdoors with a few new books in hand.

The South Hills boasts award-winning authors in many different topics. Upper St. Clair resident Eric Magliocca is the latest aspiring author to come my way. Eric teaches eighth grade English at USC’s Fort Couch Middle School. With his first novel hot off the press, Eric is happy, but relieved, that the demanding part of publishing a book is behind him – at least for now. He admits searching for a publisher and the process involved with editing and printing was educational, but a lengthy process.

Set off the coast of San Francisco, Eric’s “The Red Triangle” keeps the reader’s attention with a woman’s disappearance from an uninhabited spot in the mysterious Farallon Islands. His novel touches on parenthood, betrayal, identity, the effects a tragedy can have on a child and how a disaster can shape his or her life. You’ll have to read the book for more.

“I’ve always loved to read as well as write,” said Eric. “About five years ago I wrote a short story with potential as a novel. About two years ago, I started “The Red Triangle” and found that book publishers are leery to take risks with a new author. I was excited when “Red” gained the attention of a firm in South Carolina. Editing became a long and detailed process.”

As a high school student at USC, Eric played soccer, then he went on to play on the tennis team at W&J during his senior year. He later coached girls’ soccer at South Fayette Middle School and boys’ basketball at Fort Couch Middle School.

Being both an avid sports fan and a talented writer, Eric’s early writing experiences include a piece on tennis-great Serena Williams focusing on the colorful court clothes she wore at competitions and an article on “Who’s the Greatest?” (tennis player), both published in Tennis Life.

Still another, Eric’s writing excels in “The Complete Player” focusing on his W&J teammate Jeff Tomaino who outplayed many at tennis although missing both a hand and forearm.

Exhilarated with our social media evolution, Eric has drawn lots of interest with yet another article, this one on text messaging published in the Upper St. Clair Today magazine.

For now, “The Red Triangle” is available at Amazon.com for $15 and on Kindle for $4.99. To reach author Eric Magliocca, email ericmagliocca@yahoo.com.